Lama has already mentioned the similarity to these type of generalizations about the most popular sporting rifle in the country, the AR. The same irrational generalizations have also been made about black people in the past and now police officers.
Anyway, a "pit bull" as I understand it did come about from crossbreeding with the American Bull Dog, but is still very different. The Pitbull is commonly referred to in the dog world as a poorly bred American Staffordshire Terrier or AmStaff for short. The American Bull Dog, only supposed to be a medium sized dog, is much larger than what an AmStaff/Pitbull is supposed to be.
This type of thing has gone on with dogs for a long time. Some of it is the raising and some of it is just plain poor breeding. It happened with the Dobermans back in the 70's after a couple movies came about about them. Then it happened again with the German Shepherd Dogs in the late 70's and into the 80's. It happened in the 90's with Rotties. The 2000's it began with the Pits. IMHO, it mostly came down to over breeding and poor breeding with little to no consideration of temperament of the sire and dam or any of the other ancestors further back in the lines. There is absolutely some truth that some of the problem is in the raising, but if you follow another old computer programmer's acronym (GIGO) then it'll make more sense. Garbage In - Garbage Out) Suffice it to say, that while I'm all in favor of our freedom to do as we please, I wish people would be more responsible in temperament testing dogs before breeding them.
I've owned Rotties and GSDs and currently have two GSDs that are tracking, obedience, and protection trained. They/we are retired from the sport, but still quite capable. I've trained many other breeds and learned many of the differences in each of their unique characteristics. The Pits are very good at what they were intended for and if that is ignored can and has been disastrous. That can never be ignored with any breed including the little Dachshund. A vicious little animal bred to go underground to flush out Badgers. Some still have it in them do accomplish that task.
Great, I'm old and have rambled on enough that I've forgotten where I was going with this when I started. Oh well, I'll post it anyway and maybe I'll remember it after more responses.
